


i'm sorry son, you’re reaping what you’ve sown

by mirrorfade



Series: the reaper grins [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:45:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirrorfade/pseuds/mirrorfade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hoped you’d be interesting,” Hawke continues. “You’re <i>not</i>. Are you sorry, Tallis? Are you fucking <i>sorry</i>?”</p><p>She’s not. </p><p>They’ll have to work on that. </p><p>**</p><p>Aggressive!Hawke has a problem with the Qun. Tallis probably should have seen this coming. Locking two enemies in a cell can only end in blood. It only gets interesting when one person doesn’t know they’re enemies just yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm sorry son, you’re reaping what you’ve sown

**Author's Note:**

> Notice how Tallis just assumes that your Hawke is going to be a-okay with working with an agent of the Qun? Well, this one wasn’t. Nobody expects the hero of the story to be a psychopath. Bethany is 100% done with everything, but will never, ever show it. TW for gore, cannibalism, and Hawke. Hawke is her own trigger warning. Title taken from Celldweller’s _Against The Tide_.

Any opportunity to remind Meredith of her own inadequacy is worth reveling in, so Hawke comes and takes her sister out of the Gallows. An educational fieldtrip, she tells the templars, though what she really means is a vacation. They know it. She can see it in their faces. The way they thin their mouths at her. 

The stupid one, Keran, still can’t look her in the eye. Afraid of everything. Hawke wonders if the demons still come to him at night. If he wakes up screaming, remembering what they did. Remembering how Hawke and the others debated whether or not to cut his head off. 

Just in case. Demons aren’t without uses, but only when on the right side. 

Hawke doesn’t have a problem with anyone. Not even demons. Just so long as they’re on her side. The same could be said for the rest of the world. 

“Where are we going, sister?”

Bethany walks in step with her, chainmail hidden beneath her robes. She is the last one left in the family besides Gamlen. She is the only one worth protecting. There are others, but only Hawke and Bethany share blood. This is one of those things that matters. Perhaps more than it should. 

“Sister?”

“We’re going to watch it play out.”

“Watch what?”

“A tragedy,” Hawke murmurs. “Won’t that be fun?”

Bethany sighs. Of course she knows how this part goes. Bethany has survived the Blight, and everything Kirkwall has thrown at her. Anyone who has done that is not weak; Hawke cannot abide weakness. “You always had odd tastes.”

“You’ll have fun,” Hawke promises, not arguing the point. “We’ll kill a dragon, you and I.”

Bethany giggles. “A whole dragon?”

Well. Maybe not. 

“A drake,” Hawke amends. But that’s okay. It almost counts. 

Bethany pats Hawke on the shoulder, curling her hand around the armor. “I’d like that. Sister.”

**

They do that. And more. 

Hawke remembers the look on Baron Arlange’s face when she came up to him. The way he sneered through defeat, how he tried to imagine what humiliation a Dog Lord would impart. Something nasty, something _low_. Hawke lets him stew in that for a moment, let him think it over. She leans in close. Smells his fear. Sees the sweat staining his pretty armor. All that silk and chainmail. 

“Well?” he demands. 

All puffed up and angry, even in defeat. 

Good. Hawke likes that pride. She smiles, and motions him forward with a curl of her finger. The gauntlets are stained with blood and drake guts. She paints a stripe of gore across his cheek. 

The baron shudders with open revulsion. Hawke smiles at him with true fondness. 

Bless his precious heart. She’s going to enjoy this _so much_.

The baron glares at her, in that slit-eyed way all Orlesians do. “ _Well_? What is it you command, Mistress Hawke?”

Hawke smiles widely. Lets him see her teeth. “Andraste guard your soul.”

Not that he’s ever going to see the Maker, where he’s going. 

It’s in that moment that Tallis edges forward. “Hawke—”

“Shhhhh,” Hawke murmurs, and leans in very close. The baron’s eyes go wide and then very, very tight. Perhaps he thinks she’s going to kiss him. Put him on a leash and pull him around for all to see. Poor boy. That’s probably the worst thing he can fathom. 

These people have no imagination at all. 

Hawke knocks the baron’s helmet off, watches it hit the mud. Watches the duke as he frowns. 

Oh, so fun. None of them quite understand yet. Only her friends understand, and none of them say a word. Bethany picks up a flower with a sigh. Waiting for the inevitable. 

None of them stand close enough to get bloody. They know the drill. 

Well, most of them do. 

“Hawke?” Tallis asks. “What are you doing?”

Making a point, Hawke doesn’t say. Because that’s a lie. She’s really just having fun. Seeing what happens when she pushes. Seeing what happens when she leans in close and pulls the baron’s head back so she can get at his throat. The one part where the armor doesn’t _quite_ suffice. 

He makes a sound like a prayer when she rips into his throat. _Huuuuuk_. It goes soft at the end. Hawke rears back, shaking her head like a dog, and blood sprays warm across her face like a fountain. Red, red everywhere, hot and salty, an ocean of red dripping down her armor. The baron goes twitch, twitch, twitch as he falls, grasping at his neck, not quite dead yet but soon. Very soon. He’s going to die in the mud, staring at her. Groveling on his knees and thinking about what he’s done. As all bad men should. As most of her enemies _will_. 

Hawke tips her head back and swallows. Feels the blood slide down into her belly. 

Red and salt. So much red. 

The baron, no longer so proud, is dying at her feet. 

Hawke kicks him, so that he’ll look at her. So that his arrogance will bleed onto the mud, and she’ll be able to see every detail. The way his face goes soft, as men’s faces often do when they are about to die. 

It’s not often that Hawke has the chance to watch this part up close. Most days, she has to kill quickly, and in great number. 

Kirkwall is troubling in that way. But here, oh, she could grow to like it here. 

People like this, they die so _interesting_. 

“Goodbye,” she whispers, and watches his eyes go dark. 

It takes longer than expected. 

These Orlesians, they have tough skin. Hawke wipes her mouth, and smiles for the duke. Must be all that perfume. It seeps in. Makes a home next to all the muscle. She can feel the baron’s skin caught between her teeth, and knows the duke can see it too. Knows that everyone can see it. 

“Well,” the duke says finally. His composure is iron-strong. Just like his stomach must be. One of his guards is throwing up in the bushes. “Is that, ah, a _Fereldan_ custom?”

Hawke gives the body another kick. Just to see it twitch. Dead but still moving. Still warm too. She wonders what his insides look like. It would be rude to look in front of all these nice people, wouldn’t it? So very rude. And they can’t have that. 

Oh no. Even monsters have standards. 

“In Fereldan, we’d cut off his hands, nail them to our thrones, and feed the rest to our mabari,” Hawke says mildly. “But he smells diseased. I won’t dishonor my dog. So we’ll have to leave part of the tradition behind. So sad. But what can you do?” 

The duke smiles, even as his eyes go tight with something dangerously close to fear. “I see. One must be…properly shamed. With things like this.”

“One must,” Hawke agrees. “Or they’ll just try it _again_.”

And that got annoying, yes it did. 

She wonders if she can get away with cutting the baron’s belly open. If she can take his heart and make a stew out of it. One has to have a reputation with these types. Orlesians will try anything if you let them. No sense of propriety at all. They’re a bit like qunari. They have to be dealt with in the same way. “I believe we’re done with this hunt.”

“It would appear that way,” the duke says. He inclines his head to her. How polite. “Do join me for supper.”

“I might wait.” 

Hawke does not look at the body, though she wants to. It’s getting _cold_. 

Bethany slides up next to her, touching her sister’s armor. “Sister, you promised. And we have such nice things to wear. It would be a shame to waste them.”

“A shame!” The duke shakes his head in mock terror, beginning to remember himself as the blood cools. Remembering his mask and the famous game that will, eventually, burn his country to the ground. “I would not dream of depriving my guests of the beautiful Hawke sisters. Why, I fear there would be a riot in your absence. You have been the talk of the hunt, my dears.”

“We wouldn’t want a riot,” Bethany says. 

Hawke smiles, picking a chunk of muscle out of her teeth. “Perish the thought.”

**

Later, all dressed up and pretty, Tallis comes to her. “You didn’t have to kill him like that.”

Hawke slips a knife under her nails. Cutting the dirt free. These people care so much about appearance, they notice _everything_. She loves it. Loves the idea of letting the duke’s nice friends see her scraping blood off her hands in front of the d’oeuvres. As if they haven’t ordered massacres with a whisper. Never once dirtying their own hands.

That’s not how it’s done around here, Hawke knows. The nobles, they have people for that. For that nasty business. 

It’s good to make them remember. To make them squirm a little bit. 

“He would have killed me,” Hawke reminds Tallis, mildly. 

Tallis looks very nice in silk. Another mask of hers. A spy must look at home in a thousand costumes. 

Hawke imagines carving Tallis’ alliances into her belly. Imagines making it a scar, so there could be no mistake. Even under soft muslin and silk, the truth would linger. Bone deep, scarred in. 

Maybe later. If Tallis doesn’t run away first. 

Sometimes they do. Hawke has never been subtle. It’s fun to see how far she can go, though. How far she can push and prod until the fool before her finally wises up. The smart ones run. The stupid ones fight. 

Hawke has never met anyone stronger than her. Not yet. Really, it’s only a matter of time. But it won’t be Tallis that ends her. 

Tallis isn’t nearly interesting enough for that. 

It’s a shame, really. 

“You could have killed him cleanly,” Tallis murmurs. 

“And let his men avenge him for my trouble.” Hawke sticks the knife into the table, watches as the nobles around them flinch and titter. “How very _noble_ of me.”

Tallis frowns at her. She’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “You wouldn’t really have eaten him, though. That was just something you said to scare the duke. People don’t _do_ that in Fereldan.”

How earnest she sounds. Hawke snatches a wine glass away from an inattentive noble. The wine here is strong and sour. Just the way that Hawke likes it. She feels it burn all the way down to her gut, a thousand different flavors, pulling at a thousand different memories. “You’ve been to Fereldan, have you?”

“I’ll have you know that I’m _very_ well traveled.”

Hawke smiles over her wine. “Are you, then?”

Tallis grins at her, all cheek and warm humor. As if she’s not thinking about sewing Bethany’s mouth shut and gouging out her eyes. The Qun has rules about mages. “Oh yes. I’m cultured lady.”

“I like culture,” Hawke says. “But mostly I like wine. Do you think they’d mind if I stole some?”

“Probably not. It is a party, after all. Just don’t end up in the fountain. We have work to do.”

Oh yes. That. 

Hawke drains the glass. “Oh, then by all means, let’s save the debauchery for later. Possibly while escaping. Do you think we could stop by a brothel on the way out? I’ve heard _so much_ about Orleisian whores….”

Tallis laughs. “Maybe. If we’re lucky.”

**

They’re not. Or at least Tallis isn’t. 

It would, Hawke thinks, have been a very easy mistake to avoid. Just a little fact checking. Pulling names. Plying secrets with gold and sharp little knives. Only a little blood spilt. And what sort of rogue ever cared about blood?

But, no. Here they sit. Tallis on the ground, hands clutching her knees, big eyes looking down. Oddly ashamed – or just embarrassed that she got caught. 

Of course she should be embarrassed. A good rogue never gets caught in a lie. The best rogues live so that _an honest one_ can be carved on their sorry tombstone. Anything else is useless. 

Hawke doesn’t mind lies. She tells them all the time. But oh, she can’t abide getting caught in them. 

Apparently, neither can Tallis. That’s one point in her favor. 

One against the legion that stand against her. It’s really not enough. 

Too bad. So sad. 

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” Hawke asks softly. Pulls the tone she memorized from Mother – dead in the ground but still useful and makes it hurt in all the soft ways it can. _(mama)_ “Stupid little liar. Can’t even look me in the eye.”

Tallis blinks. There are no tears. No fire, either. No fight at all. Just resigned sadness. Caught in a lie and not mean enough to do anything about it. 

How boring. 

“I didn’t intend it to go like this,” Tallis says. As if that weren’t obvious. As if _anyone_ sets out to be caught so easily. But this is not a lesson, no cautionary tale passed from master to student. This will end exactly as it must. Something deep and angry inside Hawke’s gut commands it. The part that trembles when she smells blood. 

And there will be blood. Soon. 

“Of course I found out,” Hawke continues, tapping a nail against her lip. It’s split open and crusted with blood. “I knew before he _said_.”

 _That_ gets a reaction. Tallis sits up straighter. She doesn’t stand, though. Not yet. Probably still wants Hawke on her side. Women don’t do so well in dungeons. Even agents of the Qun know that. “What?”

Hawke smiles. Bares her teeth. “Your armor. Stupid. It’s _right there_ on your belly.”

Tallis has the decency to redden at that. As if no one would recognize the symbol of the Qun. As if the person who killed the fucking Arishok wouldn’t know that sign. But that’s the beauty of dancing with rogues. In the end, it’s always the arrogance that kills them. That one fatal flaw.

“I hoped you’d be interesting,” Hawke continues. “You’re _not_. Are you sorry, Tallis? Are you fucking _sorry_?”

She’s not. 

They’ll have to work on that. 

Hawke settles herself back against the wall. Her nice shirt has probably been ruined by cobwebs and all the misery stained into the dungeon walls. Blood and memories splattered across the walls. And that smell. That fucking smell. Shit and guts and salty fear. It’s terrible on silk, it really is. But what can you do?

It’s a necessary sacrifice, she supposes. One must suffer in order to make life interesting. And it’s not like she has any fondness for silk, except in taking it off. 

Not that she’ll be doing that anytime soon. Not with Tallis here. 

“You are _basilit’an_.” Tallis watches her, still hugging her knees like a child. “I heard so much about you…”

Hawke bares her teeth. The same ones she used to rip out the baron’s throat. “Your arishok called me that.”

“It means worthy one. Even though you don’t follow the Qun.”

As if that ought to mean something. Hawke chuckles. “Do you know what they tried to do to my sister? You can probably guess.”

Tallis is quiet. 

“They would have bound her. Put needles in her mouth. Made her a _thing_. And my friends too. All of us.” Hawke shrugs. “So I killed all of them. Made them _things_. Do you think they liked the irony?”

“Following the Qun doesn’t make you a slave.”

“Unless you’re a mage,” Hawke points out. “Oh. But mages aren’t people. I forget sometimes.”

Tallis huffs. “You’re simplifying this, taking it out of context—”

“Oh. So they _wouldn’t_ have put her in chains, then?”

Silence again. 

Hawke rests her chin on her hand. “You must have known what I did. But you thought I was too stupid to figure out who you worked for.”

Tallis smiles uneasily. “You can understand my reluctance…”

“I don’t like being lied to.”

“Ah, well…most people don’t. I’m told.”

Again with the playful smile, the _banter_. Grinning and sweet, oh yes, she’s little and utterly harmless. That smile could fool armies, and then leave their bodies behind to rot. 

Except, of course, that Tallis doesn’t have her knives anymore. 

Poor little rogue. 

“I get it now,” Hawke whispers, as if they’re truly friends. “You thought you could _convince_ me. Sway me over to your side. See the error of my wicked ways. We all want a purpose, don’t we?”

“Everyone does,” Tallis agrees, carefully. 

There it is again, the arrogance of rogues. Or perhaps of the Qun? Always thinking they know best. That they cannot go wrong. That even death is not a failure to prove a point. All that fucking _sincerity_. It’s disgusting. 

Hawke imagines smashing Tallis’ head into the wall. Turning her brains into pulp. Spreading the mess all over the walls for the duke to find. Hawke is stronger than Tallis. It wouldn’t be hard. “Do you know why I killed the baron?

Tallis blinks. “He had it coming.”

“Sure,” Hawke agrees, because that’s true even if it’s not the point. “But mostly I wanted to see what he looked like on the inside.”

There’s a moment of silence then. A long one. Tallis’ face undergoes several small changes. “You really would have eaten him.”

Hawke grins. Makes it friendly, to match the mask that Tallis presented earlier. Fun like stolen wine and dirty jokes. Harmless. “It’s a shame you don’t believe in Andraste. Because then I’d get to say, even the Maker himself couldn’t find you in my belly. ”

She pauses. Lets it sink in. 

It really is a good threat. Shame it’s gone to waste. She’ll have to find someone good to use it on later. Someone who will _really_ appreciate it. 

Not some servant of the Qun, staring at her like there’s still a way to win. 

Really. Some people just don’t know when they’ve lost. 

Hawke claps her hands together. Still smiling. “Now. What do you think I’m going to do to you, Tallis?”

The woman swallows. Then smiles too. Makes it hard and cool. “You still need me.”

“ _Do_ I, though? Do I really?”

“You won’t get out of the dungeons on your own.”

Hawke considers her nails and finds them shockingly clean. She likes the feel of blood caught underneath them. Sometimes she even dreams about it. “Tallis. Dear girl. Do you _really_ think I wouldn’t kill everyone in this fucking castle, if I had to? Or if I just… _felt_ like it.”

Of course. It’s very simple. 

Sometimes, it’s even fun. Painting the walls red. 

She’d come away with some good souvenirs, too. Things to take back to all her friends. Trinkets of gold and red gems, a fortune taken by blade and blood. The best sort of treasure. 

Really, that’s been the plan since the beginning. 

Hawke snaps her teeth at Tallis. “I thought you’d be interesting.”

Tallis tips her head to the side. Still smiling, as if she hasn’t been found out. “I can be interesting.”

“No,” Hawke tells her, sadly, “you can’t.”

It’s a shame. All that’s left is for her to die. 

Tallis is shifting her weight. Getting ready to protect herself, to get into stance. But not pushing it far, not yet, because there might be hope. She might just win. “Hawke, listen to me, we can still work together. The jewel is real. I didn’t lie about that. You can have it. It’s worth a fortune.”

Hawke leans forward so she can see Tallis’ eyes. “Do you want to know a secret?”

Tallis hesitates, then grins. “Sure. I love secrets.”

“It’s the wonderful thing about being a reaver. The dragon blood in me.” Hawke flicks a nail against her pointed teeth. “I don’t even have to _touch_ you.”

Tallis shifts uneasily. “To do what?”

“This.”

The House of Pain, it’s called. Because the body isn’t a temple, not at all, but it does contain. It holds everything in place. And pain is a weapon that everyone knows. It’s ruined kings and gods and beggars alike. Hawke tips her head back and feels the dragon blood snapping under her skin. The power that’s _almost_ like magic. Then she reaches out towards Tallis, and makes it _snap_. 

Reach out and take a chunk right out of her. 

_(Look ma, no hands)_

Tallis _howls_ , hands grasping at her belly, all that silk splattered with dark blood. “What are you _doing_ —!”

“I’m told,” Hawke says, conversationally, “that even standing _next_ to me can be painful. Like a knife to the gut.”

No need to touch. Being a reaver means that you get to hurt the world just by _existing_. It’s wonderful. There are so many possibilities. 

Hawke stands with a great sigh, stretching out her arms. She watches Tallis rolling around on the floor, clutching at her belly. All her shiny insides spilling out into the light. “Do you think that’ll kill you?”

Tallis snarls at her. 

That right there, that’s true rage. Animalistic and evil. _(perfect)_ Hawke tips her head back and _laughs_. Finally, they understand each other. Finally, they’re standing on the same level. “No.”

It won’t kill her. Because Tallis is a tough little thing, isn’t she? She’ll get small and mean, and she’ll find a way to crawl off and survive. She’ll heal in a ditch and come back twice as hard. 

Won’t that be _wonderful_?

Hawke prods Tallis with her foot. “Hi. Don’t pass out. Not yet.”

Tallis bares her teeth in a sneer. There’s blood in her mouth. Her belly is all churned around and cut up inside. Hawke made it that way. And it will burn and hurt and _scar_ in all sorts of horrible ways, but she will survive. 

She’ll live. 

It’s the only way she’ll be interesting. 

“There is something I wondered,” Hawke says, and kneels down next to Tallis. She doesn’t have a knife, but she has her teeth. They will suffice. “Can you still serve the Qun if you’re not whole?”

Tallis stares at her, bloody and confused. 

“Well,” Hawke explains, “it’s not like you _need_ both hands to survive.”

**

It’s messy after that. When Bethany and the others find her, Hawke is picking bone chips out of her teeth. She’s chipped one of them. What a shame. 

“Trouble, sister?”

Hawke smiles. Bethany is such a darling girl. “Tallis won’t be joining us. Now then, how would you like to steal a stone the size of your hand, sister? I think it’ll be exciting.”

“Very exciting,” Bethany agrees. “Shall we?”


End file.
